Leulumoega Fou started school this week. No classes as of yet though, instead the students spent the week cleaning up the compound. They cut the grass, swept the classrooms and various other tasks delegated by the teachers. This took some getting use to at first, but by the third day I was rounding up groups of students to clean up my computer lab. This may seem out of place to us westerners who are used to having janitorial staffs, which we don’t have at the school. Also, Samoan Culture places a great deal of importance on age, which means that children/students must follow instructions from their elders and authority figures (i.e. me!). For example, a common practice is to send a tamaiti (word used for both children and students) to the store to get what you need instead of going yourself. The great part is you always get exact change back. After only a month or so in the village I would be sending my sisters for my coke, snacks, etc.
I know its been a long time since I last posted, but I didn’t have any pictures to post. I noticed that my page views were getting pretty dismal so I had Blakey write a guest post. I’ve also noticed that I’m getting referrals from both Matt and Sara’s Blogs, so thanks for your views! Let me go over the past couple of weeks, so you can get an idea of how slow they were. The biggest event was on the 20th, with Obama’s Inauguration. I went to Apia the night before, and was able to watch live CNN coverage from the Charge d’Affairs (fancy word for not quite an Ambassador) house at 3 AM Samoa time. Other than that its been preparing for school, and watching alot of TV on my computer (I got 2 seasons of 30 Rock from a volunteer who went back to the states over xmas break — woohoo!).
Anyway, enough with the blah, blah. Here are some pictures from the first week of school:
